1. Technical Field of the Invention
The technical field of this invention concerns green energy or electricity generation from energy inherent during the movement of air from an exhaust of either a customary central or window air conditioner or heat pump.
2. Description of the Related Art
A need exists to increase the efficiency of machines used to cool and heat homes that are customarily referred to as air conditioners or heat pumps and consume alternating current electricity to power a compressor. The prior art developed to address this problem up to now has been from wind using a multiple blade like that of a fan mounted and turning on a shaft of a conductor, e.g. iron based stators, that move in a magnetic field to create electricity.
Windmills, or wind turbines which generate electricity from the wind are well known. Increasing efficiency of such generators and increased cost of traditional fossil fuel energy sources have lead to significant use and commercial development of wind-driven generators relying on natural air movements. Such windmills frequently are placed in windy areas and mounted on tall posts or columns. These windmills may rotate to face changing wind direction. The novel invention has as one primary objective the elimination of the need to move the turbine blade in an effort to face changing wind direction.
Other wind-driven electric generating systems have used air intake to drive the windmills. Recent inventions have attempted to collect moving air created by traveling motor vehicles to generate electricity.
On May 26, 2009, Berenda and Ferenci were awarded U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,788 for a system, which utilizes wasted or exhaust airflow from one or more ventilation systems of a bounded area such as a mine, a tunnel, or some other area requiring ventilation. This patent is incorporated herein as background art to assist the comprehension of advancement disclosed by new blades of the novel invention. Their system utilizes existing wind-powered electric generating equipment in front of the exhaust fan of the ventilation systems. It was issued within one year of the priority date of this application. Known wind powered electric generating systems, however, have not utilized exhaust air from relatively low volume non-ventilation sources typically found in air conditioner exhaust. The present invention can utilize a uniquely low volume of airflow to generate electricity.
Also of interest to this inventor is U.S. Patent Publication 2006/0156725 entitled “Power Generation from Solar and Waste Heat” by Kenessey published in 2006, also incorporated herein by reference.
The invention suggested by Kenessey relates generally to the generation of electricity and the ventilation of urban areas with the use of waste “heat” from air-conditioning systems. The related aspect to this novel invention involves creation of a column of rising air in a stack to drive electricity-generating turbines.
The general concept of using a turbine having air blown blades as a source of electricity is suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 7,153,092 issued to Randolph on Dec. 26, 2006. What is suggested and taught as novel is the use of a plurality of turbines or blade sets without regard to their shape or structure.
An earlier teaching of Berenda et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,788 which issued on Apr. 30, 1996 also describes capturing exhaust air from a bounded space or plenum and converting the moving air via a conventional turbine system to electrical energy wherein the generating equipment or turbine is structurally required to be suitably positioned in front of the exhaust fan. Today some blower blades are located below or to the side of the compressor, while other designs require the blower blade to be located above it, and still other designs have the blades located and rotated to draw air into the space occupied by the compressor. The novel structure disclosed is adapted to accommodate each of the foregoing structural arrangements by using the blade design. This is intuitively proven by the fact that it inherently adapts to capture airflow from any direction.